A Storm of Ninjas
by Archer the Undreamed
Summary: I had the bright idea to play Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 before getting caught up on the plotline. It was a confusing, traumatizing experience. This is my attempt to reconcile illogical plot points and just plain weird gameplay. Contains both 'hidden moments' and things that would have made more sense.
1. The Coupon of my Ancestors, Pt 1

I was playing Naruto : Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 and I wondered how and why Naruto got hold of the coupon that was rewarded to the player for beating Obito and sealing the Nine-Tails. Was it still good after so long? Does Konoha really honor coupons written for any merchant? Who decided it was an appropriate 'thank you' to Minato for sealing away a demon bent on destroying the village? Hell if I know, but I can give a guess at how his son ended up with it about sixteen years later. This is my interpretation of that bit of game logic.

* * *

"I've been meaning to tell you about your parents," the third Hokage started wearily, imagining he was talking to the excitable blonde he thought of as a grandson. It was a conversation he desperately needed to have with the boy, but there were so many complications to keep in mind. The Professor was a man who liked to have plans to cope with complications. So he rehearsed.

"Your mother, Kushina Uzumaki, was the previous Jinchuuriki for the Nine-Tails. She was an incredible shinobi, but she tragically died as a result of your birth. That is why you were chosen to be the next human sacrifice."

He frowned. That didn't sound quite right. Perhaps he would work his way around to that point.

"Your idolization of the Fourth Hokage is more fitting than you know. He was your father, Naruto. He loved you so much that after your birth weakened the seal keeping the Nine-Tails imprisoned in your mother, he sold his soul to the death god in exchange for making you the next jinchuuriki."

The third sighed, rubbing at his wrinkled forehead and wishing for his pipe. Unfortunately, he had run out of tobacco and one of the desk minions was running to the cornerstore for more.

_'I can work out those details later,_' he decided. '_What questions might Naruto have?_' Sarutobi huffed and puffed on his empty pipe in deep concentration, tapping the fingers of his left hand against the top of the desk and slowly leaning back in his chair contemplatively. '_If it were me, I would want to know why I was chosen, and if they left anything behind… I think I answered the 'why' question,'_ he decided perfunctorily. '_It was an emergency and they knew he would do well as a jinchuuriki due to his Uzumaki genetics. As for what they left behind…' _Sarutobi was momentarily stumped. Their apartment had been destroyed in that same attack, the only mementos of their lives were probably hidden underneath Kakashi-kun's bed (always within reach, but out of sight so that they didn't pain him on a daily basis more so than they already did), and they had possessed very few monetary assets due to the expenses they incurred stocking up on baby supplies in the last months of their lives.

Then he had it. "That's it!" Sarutobi happily thumped a fist upon his desk, never minding that his secretary jumped up four inches in her chair and glared at him. "Let me see here…" Diligently, the Third Hokage scribbled down a note to himself on his day planner, underlining it once he was done. He had barely finished writing when the four man ANBU squad who would be accompanying him to the Chuunin Exam Tournament flickered into his office, already posed in a diamond formation and kneeling. "Yes, yes, just a moment," he muttered, carefully closing his day planner on the words "Tell Naruto about the coupon Minato earned for defeating the Nine-Tails."

_'I can get it to the boy after the tournament today_,' he decided cheerily, feeling quite pleased with himself and slipping on his robes of state. '_If he wins his match it will be a prize, and if he loses it will be a consolation._' That taken care of, he put on his best game face. He always felt that he had to appear his most serious in front of other Kage. You turn out **_just one_** student who becomes more famous for getting beat up outside bathhouses than ninja work and suddenly everyone doubts your ability to do your job. It really wasn't fair. "And the Kazekage is always an exceptional prick about these things," he mumbled to himself too lowly for even his loyal ANBU to hear, carefully positioning his formal hat and shuffling to the door.

**Years later**

Tsunade drunkenly pawed through her drawers, looking for some spare paper to write on. Shizune had left the office early for a date after extracting a solemn vow that the Hokage would finish all the items on her itinerary for the night before turning in.

"A Sannin keeps its word," Tsunade slurred happily, victoriously pulling out a nicely bound journal with a gold cover and opening a bottle of her nicest ink. She flipped through pages, looking for a blank one to tear out for her fancy letter, not interested with boring, pedantic notes from god knows how long ago. Her predecessor had apparently not trusted his memory for anything or used the office workers for their kami-given purposes, writing absolutely everything he found important down. She had found entire books full of such crucial, hard-hitting notations as "the Kazekage doesn't look nearly as good in white as he thinks he does, that fatass" and "Find out why Koharu and Danzo snickered in Tuesday's meeting about tariffs".

Then she saw a name she recognized and stopped, running one perfectly polished fingertip down the page to make the slightly smudged ink stand still long enough to read it. Tongue sticking out of her mouth slightly in concentration, Tsunade carefully sounded out "Tell Naruko about the coup.. coup… coupon that…" She squinted slightly, leaning in until her nose practically touched the document. "Ah!" she declared victoriously, poking the paper hard enough for it to tear. "Minato earned for defeating the Nine-Tails!" the Godaime Hokage read aloud with careful enunciation, grinning at her own cleverness.

Although it was a little rude to pour her own, an accomplishment like that deserved a few saucers of the good stuff. And company…

Pleased with her own brilliance, Tsunade signaled to the increasingly disillusioned young ANBU who had been watching his Hokage get smashed alone in her office. It wasn't even six yet.

_'Better them than me,'_ Neji thought to himself but carefully did not say as he leapt gracefully out the window and took to the rooftops on his mission to assemble team seven for an emergency in Tsunade's office. Her phrasing, not his.

Convinced that something was severely wrong, even the eclectic and chronically lazy elements of team seven met outside the Hokage's office in good time. With a grim face, Yamato eyed the assembled group. '_What kind of mission would require Sakura, Naruto, Kakashi-senpai, that flirtatious weirdo in the belly shirt, and myself?_' he wondered, ducking his head and obediently falling into the line behind his sempai like just another fluffy head in an oddly colored train of ducklings.

"Team Seven!" the blonde woman behind the desk toasted cheerily as they walked in, sandaled feet on her desk and disastrously close to falling out of her top. Naruto's eyes honed in on the good seven inches of cleavage showing like a thirsty man would eye ice water kept out of his reach by thin, cracking glass.

Yamato turned bright red and straightened his spine like there was an iron rod through it. '_Naruto_!' he fumed. '_Show some respect to your Hokage!'_

Then he noticed that his sempai had stopped pretending to read that damn book and was eying the blonde woman with visible interest. Yamato groaned, embarrassed.

"I've called you all here today for a very special reason," the drunk who signed their paychecks started officiously, one finger pointing straight up. Her eyes crossed and she let her hand fall to her desk and land with a mighty slap that sent a crack streaking across the surface. She gave a silly grin to the teen engaged in a death stare with her breasts, leaning forward in a way that sent one boob jiggling precariously over the edge of the scarlet bra that was now visible underneath the white top falling off her shoulders. An orange book slipped through nerveless fingers and hit the floor, splaying open wantonly and bending pages in a sacrilegious manner. Sakura slapped her forehead and gave a glare that promised violence to Naruto and Sai for some reason, who was placidly not blinking with a gaze directed at Tsunade's left ear.

Yamato nearly turned purple with the effort he expended holding in hysterical laughter at the thought of how his senpai would react later when he realized he had dropped his precious book. The man had hospitalized ANBU for trying to grab Icha Icha books during spars and routinely used explosives as bookmarks as a deterrent for jackasses who thought that stunt was clever—when he realized the pages were bent, there would be hell to pay. '_But who would pay it?_' he wondered almost philosophically.

"I'm so proud of you Naruto," the blonde woman hiccupped.

"Eh?" Sakura frowned, casting a skeptical look at her teammate. Sai's dark eyes flickered to the book on the floor curiously and he bent to pick it up. Yamato snickered quietly. _'That was not a good idea, Sai-kun,'_ he noted.

Undeterred, Tsunade rested her chin on one hand and brandished a scrap of paper with the other, eyes watering furiously and head lilting slightly to the side. "I realized today that your father would have wanted you to have this," she sniffled, shaking the paper rapidly. Blue eyes blinked twice in shock and abandoned their attempt to use only optimism to coax the reputed best chest in the five great nations out of hiding.

Neji stared longingly out the window and pretended to be anywhere else, using his ancient and feared bloodline to read the slip of paper from his peripheral vision and then getting bored.

"W-what's that Granny?" He made a desperate grab for the paper but she pulled it away, tutting.

"Patience, Naruto. You see, this was given to him after he defeated the Nine-Tails."

Naruto gasped, hope filling in his expression. Sai tilted his head, momentarily more interested in how Kakashi-san had visibly started at the mention of Dickless's father and was staring at Tsunade's hand with a terrible intent (only flicking down to her chest about once every four seconds to make sure the situation hadn't changed) than he was in investigating the book in his hands.

Sakura and Yamato were the only ones who frowned confusedly and exchanged glances. While they both thought something along the lines of, '_Didn't he die the day he sealed the Nine-Tails? Why would he have a keepsake from that?'_, Naruto was too busy feeling hope at some connection with something his parents had actually touched.

"Here," Tsunade said solemnly, laying out the paper with a flourish and leaning back with a sentimental smile. "It's yours now."

He snatched it up and held the thin, yellowed paper up the dying light with a beatific grin. Then the smile died on Naruto's lips and confusion stole across his face instead. "Ten percent coupon?" he read, brows furrowed. "Ten percent of what?" Outside of the boy's field of vision, Kakashi slowly extended both hands towards the coupon in question. Dismayed, Naruto slumped into a chair and let the hand holding the coupon fall into his lap. Kakashi's gaze flickered between the coupon and the face of the inattentive subordinate holding the precious slip next to his genitals. Would he even notice a quick grab? Was this an acceptable break from his normal 'no touching the minions in the places marked in red on the counseling dolls' policy?

Thoroughly bored by all this, Sai gently set Icha Icha Office Warfare on the corner of Tsunade's desk and calmly walked out through the still open window, falling straight down out of sight and onto a magnificent ink cockatiel.

'_Yes'_, Kakashi decided, hands snapping forward just as the blonde boy stood up again and glared at the Hokage, nearly overbalancing and falling to the floor. The paper fluttered innocently in Naruto's grip.

"Anything you want!" Tsunade said expansively, gifting him with an indulgent grin and a jiggle that destroyed Sakura's embarrassed assumption that the woman was unaware of the attention being paid to her anatomy. "You could go to Bed Bath and Beyond, or Victoria's Secret-" Suddenly Kakashi's attention was on the Hokage again for an instant, just long enough for him to catch the lascivious blink Naruto completely missed. "-or even that one _really filthy_ place we don't talk about. It's yours now for anything you want. Treasure it always, and keep it away from Kakashi or he'll squirrel it away." Sakura eyed both her mentors thoughtfully.

The man in question didn't deny the accusation, something fiercely and recklessly sentimental burning in his heart_. 'That was the last thing Minato-sensei was given,'_ Kakashi realized, torn between melancholy and the desire to hug the paper to his chest and see if he could catch a hint of a lingering chakra signature. Maybe it still smelled like Sensei? His normally dead, jaded little heart skipped a beat.

Thoroughly perplexed and disappointed, Naruto slumped over a little and rubbed out the wrinkles on the antique coupon with his thumbs. "Right," he said shortly, wondering why he had ever thought that drunk old Grandma would have come through on something important like this. Sakura elbowed him, a serious look planted on her face.

"Naruto, have some respect!" she hissed, red face dangerously close to clashing with her hair. "That's a gift from your ancestors."

"Alright, alright," he snapped, folding the coupon into his wallet with exaggerated care. "Thank you, old lady," he gave a mostly sarcastic bow. "I guess I'll use it at the tool store or something."

Kakashi's lone eye narrowed.


	2. The Coupon of my Ancestors, Pt 2

Naruto sang in the shower, Kakashi noted with some disdain while he used the skills gained in his twenty-something years of service as a shinobi in order to ruffle through a sixteen year old's dirty laundry in search of the coupon that he absolutely** had to have**.

"-sy bitsy yellow polka dot bikini!" Naruto bellowed like an injured yeti, crashing into the side of his bathtub in his musical enthusiasm.

His mind firmly on the mission, Kakashi turned yet another pair of smelly orange pants inside out and stuck his fingers hopefully in the pockets without so much as twitching at the awful noise. He had gotten used to ignoring things like the certain feeling in his gut that there were treaties specifically preventing the mangled sounds coming from the bathroom. He was far too disciplined to make a face when the hand he withdrew was covered in the remains of yet another melted chocolate bar. Someday, he'd have to teach that kid about not storing chocolate next to his warm ass.

But not today.

"Iii-eeee-iii, will always love youuuuuu," Naruto sang with all the heart and soul he could muster from the other room. Kakashi repressed a shudder, now reduced to desperately pawing through less likely items of clothing, shaking grungy shirts and deciding not to be disturbed by the pile of smelly evidence that his student didn't wear underpants. He had seen worse. Probably.

But seriously, who had been appointed this kid's legal guardian? It hadn't been him, had it?

His face scrunched up in serious concentration under his mask for a moment. Then he imagined what Minato would have said about the four foot pile of laundry without so much as one tighty-whitey in attendance. It wasn't good. Good god, did Naruto not know how to do laundry? It looked like he just bought new clothing whenever the old set got too smelly. More importantly, who was selling these affronts to the only eye he had left? Kakashi wasn't exactly a Yamanaka-esque fashionista himself (as Sakura liked to remind him weekly), but he wouldn't even know where to begin searching for such an atrocity.

It probably wasn't him who was supposed to guide Naruto's fragile mind and teach him the ways of the world, he decided firmly. And anyways, if he had been made Naruto's guardian when he wasn't looking, that was undoubtedly more the Hokage's fault than his. Any Hokage from numbers 3 to 5, pick one. Hell, Danzo probably had a form in triplicate that documented this mess.

His heart leapt up into his throat when he felt a likely lump in the breast pocket of one of the many hideous tangerine affairs Naruto routinely mistook for clothing. Then it sank back down again, along with his happy expression. '_God, Gai wouldn't be seen dead in this crap,' _he thought a bit viciously (and unfairly, if Gai thought it was a challenge from his rival he would wear one of Sakura's red dresses), tossing the jacket back down sulkily.

"Just another chunk of dried ramen he forgot to microwave," the lone Hatake (last of a long and proud line of elite ninja who didn't generally dig through others' clothes with any level of enthusiasm unless it was a panty raid) sighed quietly to himself, flinging the crusty item in question over his shoulder and letting it collide with the bedroom door and shatter. Tiny ramen shrapnel rained down and settled gently over the room.

Naruto's singing stopped for just a moment before he seemed to shrug and pick back up again. Kakashi wasn't entirely certain if he was thankful he hadn't been startled into shunshin-ing out of the apartment and winced visibly.

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T, FIND OUT WHAT IT MEANS TOOO MEEEEE," echoed around the dinky apartment, along with a rhythmic thumping that was probably meant to be the beat.

"Right," Kakashi said, straightening up determinedly. "That's enough of that."

Tired of slinking around, he pushed open the door and strode into the front room as if he owned the place.

And then Kakashi stopped, bewildered and completely unsure of where to even begin.

"It looks like the pictures in home decoration magazines," he mumbled confusedly. He paled, not sure what this sinister vision meant. Had he been placed in a genjutsu? Almost had to be.

"Kai!" he shouted. The water stopped, but the daisies jauntily propped inside a blue vase and the adorable shag rug didn't go anywhere.

Naruto poked his head out from his steamy bathroom, confused blue eyes scanning but not seeing anything wrong. He ruffled sodden blonde hair and then shrugged, walking to his room stark naked, scratching at his lower back idly.

From his perch on the ceiling fan, Kakashi began to question the life decisions that had led him here to this moment. There had been no obvious turning point and he'd be damned if he could figure out exactly what he'd done to deserve such a horrible day.

As if by divine providence, a montage of Sakura screeching at him for lateness, pervertedness, rudeness, and a veritable laundry list of character flaws floated across his consciousness. He considered it for a moment.

'_Nah,'_ he dismissed.

That was when the ceiling fan started to creak. Somewhat nervously, Kakashi scuttled onto the ceiling like a crab, attaching himself with impeccable chakra flow through his feet and palms, doing his level best to avoid the kunai impaling the ceiling. He noticed with some alarm that a rather large photo of his face had been taped to the wall and used for target practice.

_'Maybe it's time to call it a day before things actually get out of hand,_' he mused, before stilling completely when his shortest and third most alarmingly obsessive and violent student flounced into the room (fully clad, thankfully) and shoved his feet into the blue sandals beside the door before (which **obviously** goes with orange, Kakashi noted with some sarcasm) and leaned over as if in slow motion to pick up the wallet (containing Minato's precious coupon) that he could now easily see was sitting in the exact center of the short table by the exit before cheerily flinging himself into the stairwell.

As the door swung sadly in the breeze and the sixteen year old who was probably going to be the next military dictator of the village yelped in surprise and banged against the stairwell in a way that had to hurt, making thumping noises that indicated he was falling down an entire flight of stairs, Kakashi once again wondered where it had all gone so very wrong.

No matter. He could catch Naruto at Ichiraku and try again.


	3. The Coupon of my Ancestors, Pt 3

Kakashi Hatake was perplexed. He was here, at Ichiraku Ramen, at lunchtime, but Naruto wasn't. At any other day, at almost any point in the day, he could find Naruto Uzumaki with startling ease. Today, however, he was absolutely unable.

The universe was definitely spiting him at this point.

Kakashi considered whether he should just let Naruto have the coupon. Life seemed to be set on that point, actually. But Naruto was just going to spend it, he didn't have the love and care the coupon needed. It was going to go away, into a tiny dark box in a shopkeep's office, and Kakashi couldn't stand for that.

No, it needed to go into the tiny dark box under his bed, instead. Kakashi could almost hear the siren song of the coupon, begging for him to come rescue it from the depressing mass of ramen receipts in Naruto's wallet.

Naruto wouldn't even notice it was gone, most likely.

Having securely wrapped himself in his blanket of delusions, Kakashi could now focus on the matter at hand.

Where in the Hidden Leaf Village could Naruto have gone?

Naruto did say that he would go to the tool shop, he reasoned. But he could be in any number of places, ready to spend the coupon and send Kakashi's hopes sailing out the window.

He needed to find him, and fast. Luckily, he had a way of doing that.

He smiled, and bit his thumb.

A tubby brown pug looked up at him, caught in the middle of licking at his stomach. "Yo." Pakkun lazily wandered up to brush Kakashi's leg. Kakashi leaned down to scratch him behind the ears. "I need your help with something."

Pakkun looked around skeptically. "We're in the village. Who would you possibly need me to track here?"

"Naruto" Kakashi answered seriously. "I need to find him."

Pakkun turned his head quizzically. "And is this for the coupon you tried to swipe from his dirty laundry basket earlier?"

Kakashi seriously considered lying so his own ninken would stop judging him, but then he realized there was a better course of action available to him.

"What do I need to do to get you to help me and never mention this again?" Kakashi asked, already knowing he would suffer for this.

The pug scratched at his ear with a back paw and crumpled his wrinkled face up in thought. "Steaks" Pakkun barked happily, "and back scratching. And I need more shampoo. Sakura has a really nice one she's been using that I want."

Kami, that dog was expensive. He may as well cut out the middleman and eat ryo, Kakashi groused.

But for Minato's coupon, it would be worth it.

"Deal." Kakashi sighed. "You drive a hard bargain. I need that coupon."

"You need a therapist and a better hobby," Pakkun huffed before taking off towards the other side of town, "but I'll let you know if I find him first."

Kakashi ignored the way his dog rolled his eyes at him and took to the half of town with the aforementioned tool shop, prowling in and out of shops like a man possessed and startling more than one shopping housewife when he pressed his face up against the glass at Victoria's Secret just to be sure Naruto wasn't in there. He even took a chance in going into the Yamanaka's flower shop, and was rewarded (and perplexed) to find that Naruto had evidently decided to take up Ikebana.

"Well, hello, Naruto" he said as casually as he could manage, stuffing his hands into his pockets so that he wouldn't be too tempted to knock Naruto out with one hand and make free with his wallet. "What are you up to? I didn't think you were very interested in flowers."

A giggle emanated from the corner of the room, and Kakashi realized that in his haste to find Naruto, he hadn't even noted the Yamanaka in the room. –_That's how a lot of people die_- he thought less than cheerfully. They weren't even particularly inconspicuous.

"I didn't think you were very interested in flowers, either, Kakashi-sensei" Ino giggled, waving her fingers at him. "Is there a lady friend we're all unaware of?"

-_Yes, a beautiful lady called destiny, currently imprisoned within the wallet of my filthy, inattentive, and surprisingly lucky student_- he wanted to say, but he thankfully wasn't quite that far gone yet. "No," he said carefully, "I was just out for a walk when-"

"Don't even tell me you got 'lost on the road of life' again, and ended up at a flower shop" Naruto interjected, earning a hurt expression from his frustrated sensei.

"Then I won't" he said cheerfully, rebounding quickly. "So what are you two doing? Have you finally decided to run away together? I'm sure Ino's father will be very pleased. Though next time, you may want to have your secret meetings somewhere more secluded than her family's storefront."

Naruto slowly processed what his sensei had said, and then shook his head furiously. "No, Kakashi-sensei, Ino was just helping me make a… present for Sakura" he said, as Ino pressed her lips together with amusement to the point where they turned white, obviously amused. He raised an inquiring brow at her. She tilted her head silently towards Naruto's purchase.

Mildly interested, Kakashi's eye wandered over the flower arrangement on the counter. He pointedly swallowed the laugh that tried to bubble from his throat. Evidently, Naruto wanted to proposition Sakura for hate sex with an arrangement of cactus flowers, orange lilies, and mistletoes because he knew she was chronically single and always looking for a lover.

"I'm sure she'll be thrilled" he said nonchalantly. Ino snorted like a pig behind the one hand pressed over her mouth. The other hand was fanning desperately at her quickly reddening face. "When are you going to deliver it?" She keened, bending over and huffing with the force of repressed laughter.

"Right now!" Naruto grinned, giving his complete ass of a sensei a thumbs-up and didn't even give Ino a strange glance.

This was going to be good. And maybe while Naruto was unconscious on the ground, Kakashi could snick the beloved paper from him. Suddenly the stars were all in line, and Kakashi hummed happily in spite of himself.

"Well, don't let me keep you" he said cheerfully, and ducked out of the tiny shop. A former ANBU colleague gave him a strange look when he hopped up and hid on the roof across from the flower shop, but a mid-level glower was enough to persuade him not to ask any questions.

When the kid finally trotted out with the insulting arrangement clutched to his chest, Kakashi hmmed happily. He followed Naruto deftly and professionally, with all the attention he normally gave to S-ranked targets and in an unusually good mood. For being such a "dead-last", Naruto had proven to be a worthy guardian for his father's last treasure.

Then Naruto ducked into the tool shop, and Kakashi's heart dropped into his little ninja sandals.

-_No, no, no, no, no_!- his mind screamed, as he quietly swept into the tool shop behind his unaware pupil, and hid behind a stack of kunai bombs. He moved from display to display, ever closer to the pocket, that hideous orange pocket that held the one thing he'd ever truly loved this week.

He was within arm's reach, now. The shop was empty, but for the inattentive civilian clerk and Naruto. The time to strike was upon him, and his hand quickly shot out for the wallet, undetected. He felt the wallet between his fingers, and with a victorious gleam in his eye, brought it back to himself and clutched it tightly to his chest. He crept back behind the displays and opened the wallet, pulled his precious keepsake out, and tucked another coupon into Naruto's wallet, carefully replacing the wallet in Naruto's pocket and sneaking back out of the shop.

He couldn't contain the bounce in his step, so he shunshined back to his apartment, giggling madly the whole way up the stairs. He carefully and reverently then placed the object of his misplaced affection safely into the seal-covered, fireproof box under his bed, where it would be safe for eternity.

"This coupon is expired, sir."

Naruto shrugged, taking the paper back and crumpling it without looking at it. "Sorry 'bout that. You have a trash can?"


End file.
